“Digital Humanities is an extension of traditional knowledge skills and methods, not a replacement for them.”
Burdick et al. “One: From Humanities to Digital Humanities,” in Digital_Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 3.
I will admit, I have very little experience with digital humanities going into this course, save for a class I half remember from middle school where we had to use 3D printers. I am, however, fairly seasoned in humanities apart from that, having participated in music, visual arts, and creative writing for most of my life; whenever I mention this, I’m often met with something along the lines of, “won’t AI replace that?” or “that will be taken over by computers pretty soon.”
Well, I’ve always disagreed with these kinds of statements. In fact, this passage resonated with me particularly because I believe, much like Burdick et al., that the humanities have the capacity to evolve with changing technology, that this age of digitization has the power to “extend” the arts rather than limit, suppress, or “replace” them. While it’s true that digital technology can pose challenges to the arts — such as the misuse of generative AI — it also brings about many new tools and circumstances that humanities are not only necessary for but will flourish alongside. For instance, many digital records make art, writing, and music more accessible to the public. Websites make use of elements of design and rhetoric, and online platforms like Fusion allow for straightforward creation of 3D models that wouldn’t have even been possible to make otherwise.
Over the course of this term, I am excited to learn more about the complex interactions between traditional humanities and new digital media, create my own designs through sites like Fusion, and apply what I already know about humanities in a digital setting, like a website page or blog post. I especially hope to become more knowledgeable about the humanities in a time where many view them as a dying field and gain a better understanding of its potential future with digital technology as a whole.